The Progress of Man from Advanced Commentary to Sophomoric Opinion

December 15, 2016

A while back, two young Mormon missionaries stood at my front door; two very nice young Elders who'd stopped by to check on the previous occupant of my apartment, who evidently was a member of their church. Upon meeting me, they asked about my religious beliefs, and when I told them I'm an atheist, they politely informed me that I can't disprove God.

My answer to the "you can't disprove God" argument is this: Back up a step. We haven't gotten there yet.

See, there's a process. Disproving something before you've ascertained whether there's sufficient reason to even follow the process would render the whole thing - even the disproof - meaningless. The first step in the process is to ask the basic question. In this case, the question is this: Does God exist?

Next, we do some background research,and this is where we run into a little snag. If one wishes to support the eventual hypothesis that God does in fact exist, one is in trouble, because we find NO physical supporting evidence to support that hypothesis. The closest thing we can find to actual evidence of the existence of God is hearsay and feelings, as in, "I know God is real because I feel him in my heart."

And in the complete lack of physical evidence, are we justified in even continuing with the process? I say no. Anything beyond this point is pretending. We cannot support processing even to the stage of creating a hypothesis, much less conducting experiments to ascertain whether we have proof or "disproof" of that hypothesis. Not only do we not find evidence to support the existence of God, but we don't even find enough evidence to justify concerning ourselves with it.